


still (your secrets I will keep)

by e_katara



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-02 23:29:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4077946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/e_katara/pseuds/e_katara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He couldn't have come up with a more cliché origin story if he tried. He literally could not. He was walking home from his job as a reporter when he saw a guy in a ski mask mugging a little old lady.</p><p>He stepped in, of course. Pulled his hood over his head, fought the guy off, gave the woman her purse back, and walked away.</p><p>The next morning, the little old lady was on the front page of the paper, calling him a hero.</p><p>The rest was history.</p><p>*i'm abandoning this story. i like the writing, so i don't want to delete it, but can't write this ship anymore for a number of reasons. sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I... I had to write super!Bellamy? It had to be done. A bit of a mashup of pieces of Daredevil, Arrow, the Flash, and vague memories of other superhero stuff I've seen. I also used those as references for some things that I absolutely wanted to avoid.
> 
> (fic title from the song kryptonite by 3 doors down)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, you could technically call him a psychic, but he didn't really consider himself one. When people think of psychics, they have a pretty good idea of what that means, the abilities someone psychic would have. But he couldn't do any of the things that immediately spring to mind. He couldn't look at a person's hand and tell them who they'd marry, or predict the outcome of a sporting event weeks in advance, or look into a crystal ball and see the fate of the world.

Two guys were glaring up at him from the ground. They were bound at the wrists, held tight to a stop sign with the use of a few extra restraints. He'd managed to almost entirely avoid a physical fight with them by moving out of the way when one of them was taking a swing at him. The criminal's fist smashed into his partner's jaw instead, knocking him out, and then, in his confusion, Bellamy had easily managed to get the upper hand so that he could restrain the pair of them with zip ties. 

One of them was snarling at him. "What, are you? Like, psychic or something? How did you get the drop on us so fast?"

He turned and started to walk away. The cops would be there soon, and he really didn't want to have to deal with them. The police chief had made it very, very clear that the department did not approve of the way he spent his nights. If anyone knew it was Bellamy beneath the hood and the mask, he'd be in cuffs in seconds. Hell, the guy had said so straight to his face. He hadn't known, of course, that he was speaking to the man in the mask. Chief Miller had thought he was just talking to a reporter - and his son's best friend - not the vigilante himself. Bellamy had just nodded, making a mental note to make sure that he was always off the scene by the time the cops got there.

With that in mind, he glanced back at the guys on the ground one last time and shook his head before ducking into an alley, dropping his hood and shoving the mask into his pocket, before quickly, quietly walking away. He sure as hell didn't need to be seen walking around town like that.

The question that the criminal asked him wasn't an uncommon one. People actually asked him that a lot, especially the criminals he fought. The simple answer would have been, of course, "yes", but it was more complicated than it seemed. Yeah, you could technically call him a psychic, but he didn't really consider himself one. When people think of psychics, they have a pretty good idea of what that means, the abilities someone psychic would have. But he couldn't do any of the things that immediately spring to mind. He couldn't look at a person's hand and tell them who they'd marry, or predict the outcome of a sporting event weeks in advance, or look into a crystal ball and see the fate of the world.

No, he could only see a few moments into the future. Two minutes and seven seconds was the furthest on record. He only knew that because he timed it, once, with Octavia. She was the only one who knew the truth and believed it, and that was only because she saw it first hand, time and time again while they grew up. He'd catch something right as she knocked it off the counter, or grab the phone before it started ringing, say "bless you" right before she sneezed. Neither of them ever really thought much about it. They both just kind of assumed that Bellamy had really good reflexes, because, well, that's what a person assumes when things like that happen. They don't just leap to the conclusion that they have supernatural powers. Hell, they don't even consider that an option most of the time, unless something gives them a reason to.

They got that reason fourteen years ago.

It happened when they were walking home from school - Bellamy was a freshman at the time, while Octavia was in sixth grade; he picked her up and walked home with her every day. That was when it suddenly became very, very clear. 

_Octavia loved to run. Always had. Bellamy made her wait for him whenever they had to cross any busy streets - anything with a traffic light - but other than that, he let her run ahead, as long as she stayed in sight. She was a big girl, and certainly mature enough to get herself across the street at a stop sign. But that day, before she could even reach the corner, Bellamy froze._

_"Octavia, no! Wait!" She turned to stare at him as he sprinted forward and grabbed her, pulling her back. She didn't realize why until, moments later, an SUV careened into the stop sign just where she was about to walk._

_O was staring at him, wide eyed and open mouthed. "Bellamy… What the hell? How did you… know?"_

_He wanted to say that he didn't. That he hadn't known that it was going to happen. Only, he had. He had known it was going to happen. He'd seen it happening in his mind, and for some reason he felt like it was real, felt the need to run to pull Octavia out of the way, and then it actually did happen, right in front of them._

_"I… I'm not sure. I just… I knew."_

After that, Octavia decided that he was a psychic superhero, and she was going to help him learn to control his powers.

She hadn't been particularly successful with that.

So now there he was, twenty-eight, sort of psychic, and still almost entirely clueless about how that worked. He knew that it kicked in when he was in immediate danger, had even started testing that out, but aside from that, how his visions worked was a mystery. They came to him randomly, brief flashes of something that was about to happen, anywhere from three seconds later to his record just over two minutes, which he only knew because every so often, Octavia would force him to sit next to her all day until he had a vision. She would hold a stopwatch that started when he had the vision, and ended when it came true. The record winning vision was of a bird flying by their window. Absolutely fucking fascinating.

Now wasn't the time to stress himself out about all the things he still didn't understand about his not-really-but-actually-sort-of-psychic abilities, though. He had business to attend to. And there was his business now, getting out of his car, which was parked across the street from Bellamy. Christopher Isaacs.

He was stepping out of his car, fumbling with his keys and briefcase. Bellamy pulled his mask out of his pocket and down over his eyes, flicked his hood up, and got moving. Isaacs was crossing the street, towards the door to his fancy apartment building. He wasn't going to make it in unhindered.

As the young, smartly dressed man reached for the door, Bellamy crept up behind him and grabbed his wrist, turning to pin him to the side of the doorway.

He lowered his voice to a threatening snarl. "What business does your boss have in the Cage Building?"

The guy was squirming, but Bellamy's grip was firm. He wasn't going anywhere.

"What do you need to know that for? Look, I'll give you my wallet if you'll leave me alone."

"I don't want your money, Mr. Isaacs. All I want to know is who Councilman Bennett talked to in the Cage building."

"Cage! He talked to Cage, and a couple other people," he gasped.

"Which other people?"

"Cage, his son, Tsing, and Thomas! They were just talking about Mount Weather!"

Mount Weather. The kid was clearly hoping that he would think that he was talking about the Mount Weather Preservation and Research Foundation, but he wasn't. They wouldn't need to be secretive if it was as innocent as that. There had to be something else going on, but this guy wouldn't know anything useful.

Bellamy released his arm, shoving him forward. "You have a nice night, Mr. Isaacs. Don't follow me. I don't want to hurt you."

An hour later, Bellamy was in his apartment, collapsing onto his bed. It had been a relatively uneventful night - he wouldn't even have any new bruises to explain away at work tomorrow - but he was still tired as hell. He hadn't known being a vigilante would be so exhausting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the "weak precognitive tendencies" thing isn't super exciting, but that's only one of bellamy's powers - he doesn't know about most of them yet!! also this fic will ultimately include bellarke because i'm trash but it's not going to be the central aspect of the fic and it's going to take a bit to build to - as of right now it's looking like that'll be chapter 3.
> 
> also heads there's going to be a lot of canon divergence in certain character details. well, obviously, because, y'know, superpowers, but that wasn't what i meant. i'm not really going to change personalities (well i might tweak murphy's a bit to make him not a douche but the fundamentals will be the same) but there will be some alterations to... other details.
> 
> any and all feedback is soooo appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He couldn't have come up with a more cliché origin story if he tried. He literally could not. He was walking home from his job as a reporter when he saw a guy in a ski mask mugging a little old lady.
> 
> He stepped in, of course. Pulled his hood over his head, fought the guy off, gave the woman her purse back, and walked away.
> 
> The next morning, the little old lady was on the front page of the paper, calling him a hero.
> 
> The rest was history.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay backstory!! yay context! yay i finally finished this damn chapter!!!

He never intended to become a vigilante. Honestly, he didn't. Had never even thought about it, actually, aside from the six months he'd had to spend explaining to Octavia that no, he wasn't a superhero, he was barely even psychic, and he definitely wasn't going to start fighting crime.

_"Bellamy, do you think you can fly?"_

_"No, Octavia, I can't."_

_"Bell, you don't know that! You never even tried!"_

_"I don't have to try, O. I' would know if I could fly."_

_"Maybe you wouldn't! You have to try, Bell! You have to!"_

_He groaned. She wasn't going to give up until he gave in. He found a small ledge to jump off of, one of the ones that's like, three feet tall, on the edge of the sidewalk, and he jumped off it half a dozen times, and each time, he fell to the ground, just like he knew he would._

_"See, O? No flying."_

_Octavia pouted and kicked at the gravel. "I still think it woulda been cool if you could fly."_

_"Yeah, it would have," he told her. He didn't actually believe that, though. He didn't want to fly. That would just be too much for him. Too much power, too much responsibility, too much stress. Not to mention that it would make him even more of a freak than he already was._

_He crouched down to let O climb up onto his back so that he could give her a piggyback ride home. After that, neither of them ever really thought about him being a hero again._

He bailed on trying to figure out the whole physic powers crap pretty soon after that. Yeah, sure, he'd let Octavia do her little experiments, time his visions, search for answers, whatever, but he was done worrying about what kind of freaky shit was happening in his brain. He just took the visions when they came, used them for his own amusement when he could, otherwise just…ignored them.

_He and Miller were sitting next to each other at their regular haunt. Miller turned to him and nudged his shoulder to get his attention. He started moving his hands, while Bellamy mirrored his movements exactly._

_'What's the plan for tonight, Bell?'_

_Miller scowled while Bellamy smirked. Miller hated when he did that - saw what he was going to say and said it with him. The two of them spoke using sign language. They'd learned it together, starting in fourth grade, when Miller had started to lose his hearing. He'd been afraid to tell Bellamy about his hearing, worrying that his friend would think he was too weird, or drop him, but he'd just nodded when Miller told him and asked if it would be okay if they learned sign language together._

_'You know I don't like it when you pull that psychic shit with me,' Miller signed._

_'Sorry.'_

_'No, you're not.'_

_'You're right, I'm not,' Bellamy grinned, and Miller rolled his eyes. 'I didn't have anything special in mind tonight.'_

_Miller nodded, and the two of them proceeded to drink and talk, just like any other night. Half an hour later, Bellamy went to the bathroom, and when he came out, Miller was talking to a guy - well, the guy was talking, and Mill was reading his lips and signing in response. Bellamy caught his eye, and his friend waved him off, so he nodded and ducked out of the bar._

Aside from occasionally messing with Miller a little bit, and being able to stop a few minor accidents before they could happen, his psychic crap was really more annoying than anything else. More often than not, they were completely useless, but when they weren't, they were inconsistent as hell in terms of the whole "actually coming true" thing, and that killed him. Basically, the further into the future he saw, the greater chance he had of royally fucking things up. This was especially true when his visions involved girls.

_He was going out with Miller and his boyfriend, Monty, to the bar that Monty's friends frequented. Bellamy didn't really want to go to some stuffy rich people bar, but Miller was kind of nervous, and hey, worst case scenario, he could get drunk off his ass and sulk at the bar._

_Don't get him wrong, he was happy for Miller. Really happy. The way he lit up around Monty was something Bellamy had never really seen him do. Like, even when he was happy, he was still pretty calm. But the smile he got on his face when they were talking, the way his expression softened when his boyfriend stumbled over his sign language, it was a whole other side to him. The only reason that Bellamy wasn't looking forward to this was because he wasn't looking forward to an evening full of bratty, snot-nosed trust-fund babies looking down their nose at him, and considering the bar they were going to, he was going to get a lot of that tonight._

_The place was called Vantage Point, and it was exactly as pretentious as it sounds. The second he set foot in the door, he was walking on eggshells. Everything looked super fancy and super, super breakable, like if he breathed too hard on it, it would shatter, and he couldn't help but tug at the collar of his Old Navy polo shirt. Guys like him didn't hang out in bars like this. Ever. The stares that were leveled at him  by the other patrons confirmed as much. He scanned the room for Miller, feeling out of place and unusually self conscious. He saw his friend in a booth at the back with his boyfriend and a bunch of people he'd never seen before. He took a deep breath, plowed a hand through his hair, and walked towards them._

_"Hey Bellamy!" Monty greeted him with a broad smile as he approached, and everyone at the table turned to look at him with friendly grins. "These are my friends. Monroe, Harper, and Jasper. Clarke is here too, but she went to say hi to her friend Wells - he bartends here - and order us another round."_

_Bellamy followed where he was pointing until he saw the girl at the bar. Her back was to them, so all he saw was wild blonde hair tied up above a long, elegant neck, leaning across the bar and laughing with the guy on the other side of it, so he turned back to the people at the table. Harper had a sweet face and curly hair and kept sneaking glances at Monroe, who had sharp features and red hair in a tight french braid, and was pretending not to notice the stolen glances. Jasper was talking to Miller - he made sure to exaggerate his lip movements so that Miller could read them, and Bellamy remembered Monty saying something about he and his best friend taking sign language together in high school, which was probably how Jasper was understanding Miller._

_Monty was watching Bellamy with a bemused expression, and he realized that he was still standing, staring at the table blankly. He took a seat and was about to ask Monty how he'd been doing when he got one of his visions, this one, of a beautiful blonde girl leaning into his shoulder and giggling._

_Moments later, he felt a nudge at his hip, and he looked up to find that it was the girl from his vision. She was holding a tray of drinks and watching him expectantly, which made him realize that she'd said something._

_"Can you scooch? I've had a really long day and my feet are absolutely killing me." Her voice was husky and she was giving him a friendly smile. He moved further into the booth and she took the space he'd just vacated, placing the tray on the table and allowing everyone to grab their drinks, taking the last one - a beer - off and placing it in front of him. He arched a brow, and she explained, "Miller told me what to get you."_

_He noted the absence of a glass in front of her. "You're not drinking anything?"_

_"Nah, not tonight. I'm on call. Believe it or not, there are some pretty strict rules about drinking and doctoring."_

_"Well shit. I wish my doctor was as pretty as you," he said, the words falling from his lips before he could think about them. If he'd stopped to think, he wouldn't have been so forward, would have probably made a little joke, which would have resulted in his vision coming true. But he hadn't, so that didn't happen. Instead, he watched her cheeks turn pink and her eyes grow wide with panic._

_"Oh! Well. Thank you? But --" she broke off as a beeping sound came from the vicinity of her hip. "Oh, crap. I've gotta go to work. It was nice to meet you!"  she said, and signed the same thing to Miller, along with 'I'm watching you'. He nodded and smiled at her as she stood to rush towards the door._

_"Wait! Could I get your number?"_

_She grimaced. "I have a girlfriend. Sorry!" And then she was gone._

_He fucking hated his visions._

As time went on, he started ignoring them as often as possible. They were all either utterly useless and inane, completely irrelevant to him, or unreliable in the sense that they might come true, but he also might wind up accidentally doing something that changes things. He'd been comfortably refusing to acknowledge them for about three years when it happened.

_He couldn't have come up with a more cliché origin story if he tried. He literally could not. He was walking home from his job as a reporter when he saw a guy in a ski mask mugging a little old lady._

_He stepped in, of course. Pulled his hood over his head, fought the guy off, gave the woman her purse back, and walked away._

_The next morning, the little old lady was on the front page of the paper, calling him a hero._

The rest was history. He started fighting crime when and where he could, stayed nameless and faceless. The newspapers referred to him as the "Opal City Vigilante". Rewards were offered for any information people could provide about him, but there really wasn't any. The cops wanted him brought in, but they'd have to find him first, and that just wasn't happening.

_When he first started out, he stuck to petty crime. Muggings, robberies, attempted car theft. It stayed like that for about six months - it was hard to focus on anything else, really, because for every crime he stopped, he got at least two new injuries. It was all he could do to get away from the scene before the cops got there._

_Eventually, though, that changed. He got better at fighting - was more able to dodge his opponent's blows, got better at using his visions to his advantage, learned the police response times. He got better at what he did, and so he started paying attention to what was happening around him._

_And that was when he started to notice them. City government officials showing up in sketchy looking places at all hours of the night, glancing around furtively before ducking into run-down buildings ._

_Something was going on. He didn't know what, but he was going to find out._

That's how he wound up shaking down the manager of a lawn and garden store on the nicer side of town.  He'd started tailing the councilmen after work sometimes, ever since he'd noticed them going  into seemingly random buildings late at night. He'd noticed that a whole lot of them seemed to come to this store, stay for at least half an hour, and then leave. He wanted to know why.

He was holding the store manager by his lapels. The guy couldn't be older than twenty five, and he was practically shaking.  "Dude, stop! Leave me alone!"

"I will just as soon as you tell me what I want to know. Why do they come here?"

"I don't know!"

Bellamy pushed him roughly up against the wall. "Tell the truth," he snarled.

"I don't know! I swear, that's the truth. They have some key to this room in the back - I've never been inside, and the owner told me that if I ever even try to look, I'm dead."

Fuck. "Who's the owner?"

"McKinney. Mike McKinney."

So McKinney was involved in it somehow. He was one of the more prominent businessmen in town, and he had a reputation for being a cold, ruthless, strategist. It wasn't a surprise to find that he was somehow a part of whatever was going on, but damn if it wasn't inconvenient as hell. McKinney was the kind of guy with a security team. Hell, he probably had two of them, and high tech systems and all sorts of other ridiculous shit that would make getting close to him nearly impossible.

He sighed, dropped the manager, and walked quickly out of the store. He made sure to stick to alleyways and avoid being seen by other people until he got to the street his apartment was on. It was two in the morning, and he needed sleep, desperately. He'd figure out how to deal with this new obstacle in the morning.

He was about to drop the hood and ditch the mask, when he had one of his visions. The area looked familiar - he recognized it as the convenience store that was about eight blocks away. There was a blonde standing in front of it, and she was being approached by two menacing looking guys, and she looked terrified.

Sleep was going to have to wait awhile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it took me so long to write this...it has been mocking me for days. i hope you like! thanks for reading, all feedback is welcome and appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I wonder if anyone ever thanks you," she muttered, her fingers stroking his cheek absentmindedly. "You do so much. But for all the talking people do about you, no one ever talks to you, do they? It must be lonely."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am dead and publishing this from beyond the grave honestly
> 
> this story is honestly proving to be far more difficult to write than i anticipated and while I do enjoy the challenge...jesus this is destroying me. so i'm super sorry for the massive time delay on this chapter (and likely future chapters too) but i really hope you'll stick with me!!

Flowers.

He smelled flowers.

Only he didn't smell flowers. He just thought he did. Did he take a blow to the head? Was he hallucinating? Because what he really smelled, what he knew he smelled, was the unmistakable smell of an alley. Rotting fish, garbage, and piss.

Only… Only, he kept smelling flowers. If he could just open his eyes, he could confirm, he could be sure that he was imagining the smell of flowers. And the fingers tracing gently around his body, poking and prodding, and the feeling of something brushing his face, that was all fake too. No matter how real it felt, it couldn't possibly be real. He was just sitting in some gross, rank alley, imagining that someone else was there with him, touching him, smelling like flowers, so he wouldn't have to think about all of the bruises, the throbbing in his arm, the feeling of something warm and wet and sticky trickling down his leg.

But he couldn't possibly be imagining that someone was forcing his eye open and shining a ridiculous little light into it. He blinked slowly, and all he could see was the fucking light and some wavy, yellow lines. He screwed his eyes back shut, and tried to figure out what was happening.

He was cold. He was cold, and he was sitting on a hard floor, his back and head resting against a hard wall, and everything was uncomfortable and painful, and there was definitely someone else standing in front of him.

And that someone, whoever they were, was talking. Quietly. He was almost positive they weren't talking to him. Were they on the phone? Was there someone else there with them? How many people were looking at him right now? He was afraid to open his eyes, so he just listened.

"What kind of freak lets this happen to themselves? Cracked ribs, knife wounds… God, and this is so not the place to do this." The voice was soft, and gentle, a little bit raspy, and it was… Soothing. Pleasant. Well, it would have been pleasant if he wasn't pretty sure it had just called him a freak. He was about to object, he was, but the voice kept talking. "Why did I do this? Why? When some masked weirdo gets knocked out in front of you in the streets, you call the cops! You don't drag his ass into an alley and try to fix him. Dammit, I'm a doctor. A surgeon! I'm so much smarter than this. Why the hell do I never think before doing these things?"

He fully opened his eyes, and his face was brushed by this person's - this doctor's - hair, and he realized, that was why he was smelling flowers, because the doctor's hair smelled like flowers, and it kept brushing by his face, and so he smelled flowers. He wasn't imagining things.

Fingers were gingerly prodding his side, and he cringed, and the doctor looked up and their eyes met, and holy shit, hers were so, so blue.

She pulled back, still leaning over him, but not quite so close. "Are you okay?" Her hands moved in unison with her mouth. She spoke sign language.

That was perfect, really. He didn't need to talk. He hadn't wanted to talk out loud, so this was good, because if he spoke, that would mean that someone heard his voice. Someone who wasn't doing bad things. People who do bad things, they don't talk to the cops much, don't want them to look too closely. But a regular person? Someone who wasn't doing anything shady? Those were the people who talked to the cops. She was one of those people. He didn't think she'd rat him out - why would she have pulled him into the alley and tried to take care of someone she was about to turn in? - but he couldn't be sure. It would be better to err on the side of caution, of restraint, so that if she did talk to the cops, they wouldn't be able to get any information that would actually be useful. She didn't know his name, his voice… Anything. Not even what he looked like, because he could feel his mask still resting in place over his eyes.

Wait. Why would she leave the mask on?

He gathered himself enough to realize that she was watching him expectantly. Right. She's asked him a question. Only problem was, he couldn't remember what she'd said. So he responded by signing a question of his own. 'Why didn't you take my mask off?'

'Why are you even wearing a mask?' She didn't speak that time, and he felt something like disappointment at the quiet. He liked the sound of her voice.

He thought about what he should say for a moment. 'Because I don't want any trouble.'

'You could have fooled me,' her mouth twisted into a wry smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. 'Some of these injuries are pretty bad. Either way, I really don't want trouble. Something tells me that knowing the masked vigilante's super secret alter ego is probably an invitation for mayhem.'

Well, that was fair. 'So why are you even helping me?'

She watched him carefully for a moment, then shook her head and turned around to grab something from her bag. "Why did I decide to help you? How the fuck should I know? There were those muggers, and I took down the one, and the other knocked you out," she was muttering quietly, and he was confused, because as far as she knew, he could only communicate via sign language. "Next thing I know, I'm dragging a complete stranger into an alley to assess his injuries. A masked stranger! What the fuck was I thinking? Oh, right. I wasn't thinking. I never think. What the fuck is wrong with me?"

Oh. She was talking to herself again. Kind of weird, but to be fair, he was the one running around in a mask getting the shit kicked out of him on a somewhat regular basis, so he really wasn't in any position to judge.

She glanced up at him and signed 'I honestly do not know,' before grabbing his arm, tightly, and pulling it out straight. 'I need you to close your eyes, breathe deep, and try to hold still.'

Well. That was… Ominous.

She hummed while she worked. It was soft and sweet and comforting, and in that moment, he thought it was just about the best thing he ever heard. He wasn't even sure she realized she was doing it, honestly, but he was glad she was. It was a nice distraction from the rest of her bedside manner. She handled him roughly, moving his body around to access his injuries to assess and treat them, and he was doing everything in his power not to yelp, because ouch. Most of them weren't too bad, thankfully - just minor scrapes and bruises - but there were a few that he was dreading. The cuts on his knee and his head and the friction burn on his left arm were going to be killer.

She tapped his shoulder so he'd look up at her. 'I think you might have a cracked rib. I have to check.'

He didn't know why she felt the need to tell him that - she hadn't said anything about the rest of the things she was doing, but then he felt her fingertips at the hem of his shirt.

Oh.

Her hands brushed against his abdomen and then up to his chest, and he was really, really glad she left the mask on, because no way in hell did he want the pretty doctor to see him blushing while she was just examining his injuries. One of them held his shirt up away from his body while the other slid up to his ribcage. She put a gentle pressure on one rib and he couldn't stop the cry that escaped from his throat.

She nodded and looked back up at him. 'Yeah, that's cracked. Nothing I can really do about that, sorry. Just be careful. But we're almost done,' she signed, and he breathed a sigh of relief before remembering what was left.

She ripped open an alcohol swab and dabbed at the huge gash on his leg, and Bellamy was pretty sure his soul left his body for a moment, because Jesus fucking Christ, that was painful. She glanced up at him apologetically and offered her left hand, which he took without thinking, before returning to the task of cleaning the wound. He squeezed her hand so hard that he heard bones cracking, but she didn't even flinch.

'This one is ugly, but it doesn’t need stitches. Just keep it clean and covered. Same goes for the arm.' She told him, coating it with antiseptic and covering it gently with a large gauze pad. She did the same for his arm before pausing again. She was looking at him with a furrowed brow, biting her lip.

'What?'

'I'm not sure how to do your cheek. The mask is in the way.'

Right. The mask. Covering the cut on his cheek. He didn't remember getting that cut. He just knew his cheek had been stinging since he woke up, and his mask was damp with blood, which was super uncomfortable, but still preferable to having his identity exposed. 'Did you see how I got that one? I don't remember it.'

'One of the men attacking me ran away when I fought back. He saw you. He punched you. Hard.'

That made sense. It didn't solve the mask problem though. He was about to ask if she really had to see it when she caught his eye. 'Do you trust me?'

He nodded, only realizing what he'd agreed to when she slowly started to pull his mask up to reveal his chin, then his mouth, then his cheeks, just enough to expose the cut. The downside of this was that it covered his eyes, so he couldn't see anything. That meant that, as far as she knew, they couldn't communicate.

She pulled away quietly, and somehow, he knew what she was trying to ask. Is this okay?

He nodded and swallowed, hard, because he was suddenly very aware of the level of trust - of intimacy \- inherent in the act. A complete stranger was practically sitting in his lap, about to be touching his face, giving him stitches, and he couldn't even see her. Hell, he couldn't see anything. He was about as vulnerable as he could possibly be, but for some reason, he wasn't worried.

She leaned in closer and grabbed his hand, moving it to rest on her hip, giving him something he could squeeze when it got painful, like how she gave him her hand earlier, only this was so much worse, because it was her hip. It was her hip, and she was so close to him, and she was so beautiful, and the position they were in was far better suited for kissing than stitching, and he could feel her breath on his cheek, and he was absolutely positive that if he tilted his head just so, he could kiss her. He was really tempted, too, but then her fingers found his chin and gently turned his head to give her better access to the wound, and he fell back into reality.

She dabbed at it gently, obviously trying to avoid hurting him any more, but despite her best efforts, it stung like hell, and his fists clenched reflexively. He heard her sharp intake of breath and let go of her immediately. She pulled back and lowered his mask briefly so that he could see her. 'I'll be fine. Trust me.'

He nodded, and she covered his eyes again. As she resumed her task, he couldn't help but feel stricken. He trusted her. He didn't trust anyone, but for some reason, when she asked for his trust, he gave it to her without having to think twice.

She finished stitching him up carefully, and he tried not to squeeze her too hard. When she finished tying the last stitch, her fingers lingered on his cheek, and he held his breath.

"I wonder if anyone ever thanks you," she muttered, her fingers stroking his cheek absentmindedly. "You do so much. But for all the talking people do about you, no one ever talks to you, do they? It must be lonely."

He swallowed. Things were starting to get a little too intimate, and he was starting to get nervous. She must have noticed that change in him, because she drew her hand back and carefully rolled the mask back down to cover his face again. The next thing he knew, he was looking up at her, and she was offering him her hand. He grabbed it and she helped pull him into a standing position.

She looked a little embarrassed. 'Sorry about that. You need to get those stitches taken out in about five days. And… Thank you. For everything you do.'

She turned to walk away and before he could realize what he was doing, he'd reached out to grab her arm. 'Where are you going?'

'To my car.'

'I'll walk you,' he offered. She gave him a long, careful look before nodding.

 

 

Two days later, she found a note on her windshield after she left work.

> _"Thanks for the help, doc. You're right, it does get a little lonely, but I think that the two of us make a pretty good team. I'm sure I'll see you around."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> really awkward stranger intimacy is the most fun kind of intimacy
> 
> Fun facts about Clarke in this AU:  
> \- Surprise surprise, she's a doctor  
> \- Raven is her ex at this point (they were dating the first time she met bellamy and miller but have since broken up but are still badass best friends ofc)  
> \- She speaks English, Spanish, and American Sign Language fluently  
> \- She's learning French, Portuguese, and German  
> \- She can speak some Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Tagalog, Korean, and a few other languages. She's far from fluent in these, but she knows enough to be able to communicate about medical stuff with any patients she may have who don't speak English  
> \- She spends the time to learn all these languages because she wants to help her patients who don't speak English - or who do, but not particularly well - feel more comfortable. Being a patient is such a vulnerable experience, and she doesn't want them worried about embarrassing themselves or miscommunicating. She'd much rather embarrass herself a little bit because of her incomplete grasp of the language than force them into an even more uncomfortable situation.  
> \- I love Clarke  
> \- In general she has stellar bedside manner, but she's nervous in this scenario so she's awkward as heck  
> \- while she's doing this she's thinking along the lines of like "this is the literal worst idea ive ever had why am i even helping him…hes kinda hot tho…hes kinda hot…jfc clarke get it together this is not the time"
> 
> and a couple of notes about Bellamy:  
> \- though they have met, he does not remember Clarke! they met once a few years ago for like 5 minutes tops. also he just got decked in the face and is not thinking super clearly.  
> \- he's really mostly just thinking "fuck fuck fuck fuck fUCK fuck FUCK FUck fuck fuck fuCK" for the entire encounter with varying levels of emphasis on the word


End file.
